Fear, loathing and politics

Rapist Bilal Skaf may be behind bars for at least 40 years but that isn't keeping him out of headlines, writes Stephen Gibbs.

BILAL Skaf is not so cocky now. The 21-year-old pack rapist who mocked his victims, smiled through his trial and abused his sentencing judge is learning he has no real power in jail.

If Skaf thought he would be left to rot quietly for the next four decades he was dead wrong. Public scrutiny of his thoughts and actions have if anything increased since he was slated for at least 40 years of a 55-year sentence.

Since the day he was sent down, we have learnt Skaf's life was threatened by fellow inmates, his mother tried to smuggle love letters out of Goulburn's "Super Max" jail, and that he has scribbled obscene cartoons featuring the fiancee who ditched him.

We know he has been accused of threatening to blow up "Australians" if all Muslim prisoners in NSW are not released. We know he supposedly has affiliations with a prison gang called W2K - Willing To Kill - and that his associates have threatened to shoot court officers when he next faces a magistrate.

First and foremost we know that in the weeks before the 2000 Olympics Skaf summoned a gang of young men by mobile phone to commit a series of pack rapes for which he was convicted on 21 counts of aggravated rape, assault and kidnapping.");document.write("

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Skaf was a monster before we knew his name or saw his face. The appalling nature of his crimes, his record 40-year minimum sentence and the accompanying remarks by Judge Michael Finnane ensured that.

"What this trial showed was that he was the leader of the pack, a liar, a bully, a coward, callous and mean," Finnane found. "He is, in truth, a menace to any civilised society."

Skaf's attitude was summed up by his retort to Finnane. "I'm innocent," he shouted. "I remain [sic] my innocence until the day I die, you c---."

"The worst of all offenders", as Finnane described Skaf, had throughout his trial shown absolutely no remorse and "conducted himself as if the proceedings were a joke".

The Crown Prosecutor at his trials, Margaret Cunneen, said Skaf's crimes had left an indelible stain on the psyche of the citizens of NSW. The Premier, Bob Carr, said Skaf's 55-year term was "the sort of sentence the community expects", while the Leader of the Opposition, John Brogden, said he hoped Skaf would rot in jail.

Eleven months later, Skaf is still a useful political tool. His presence was felt during the March 22 election campaign and is there in any debate about sentencing and prisons.

If Skaf does not seem to comprehend the gravity of his crimes, he must be bewildered that he is so often still in the news. John Ryan, the Opposition's acting justice spokesman, claims the Government uses the Super Max jail in general, and Skaf in particular, as a "freak show" to prove it is tough on crime.

He attacks the Corrective Services Commissioner, Ron Woodham, citing the department's leaking of stories and pictures about prisoners such as Skaf, the backpacker killer Ivan Milat and the political assassin Phuong Ngo. The Government defends Woodham, saying that Skaf's ongoing criminal behaviour in jail is a matter of genuine public interest. Woodham says of Skaf that Finnane "summed him up to a Tee".

The Herald has seen a letter in which Skaf says he is the leader of a prison gang and identifies other inmate members' positions.

"If you're considering on being a luitanent [sic] please don't hesitate to ask," he wrote. "I have a vacant place, cause I sacked [deleted]."

Skaf has still expressed no remorse and shows no signs of settling down in jail. "He hasn't changed despite our best efforts ..." Woodham says.

As recently as Wednesday, Skaf warned Super Max officers to be careful when they finished work as one of them could get shot.

"This has become yet another criminal inquiry into his threatening behaviour towards staff who manage him," Woodham says.

During his trial, Skaf's barrister could not submit his client had shown any contrition because Skaf insisted no psychological reports or character references be tendered.

Throughout the hearing Skaf remained unnamed, until a suppression order was lifted and his face splashed on the front page of newspapers on September 7 last year. He has rarely been out of the news since. Within a month of his sentencing, rumours were circulating that he had had his penis lopped off, been raped in jail, taken to hospital and transferred interstate.

Just a week after he was named, Skaf was back on the front page when his mother, Baria, was barred from visiting all NSW jails after being caught on security video trying to smuggle letters her son had written to his fiancee.

The letters contained sketches of Skaf's cell and exercise yard and stills from that surveillance appeared in The Sun-Herald.

At the same time it was revealed Skaf had been transferred to Super Max because three fellow inmates at Long Bay were said to be planning to take blood from an HIV-positive prisoner and inject it into Skaf.

Soon after, the then Privacy Commissioner, Chris Puplick, was warning that the Skaf family could be eligible for up to $40,000 compensation for breach of privacy, prompting Carr to change the law. Carr introduced the Privacy and Personal Information Protection Amendment (Prison) Bill 2002, stopping prisoners such as Skaf, their family or friends receiving payment for breaches of privacy laws.

Brogden told reporters: "The reality is I have no sympathy for that family. Their son's in jail for a long time for a horrific crime and she shouldn't be breaking the rules either."

Skaf's then fiancee said: "Tell me anyone who gives a damn about whether he writes me love poetry. Who cares?"

In late September Skaf's father, Mustapha, was accused of offering prison officers $100 to talk to his son on a phone. Cut off from his family and with his estranged fiancee now regretting ever supporting him, Skaf was on his own.

The Channel Ten reporter Paul Mullins is the only journalist to have spoken to Skaf since his sentence. "When I saw him in Super Max in December he'd only been there a couple of months and he looked like a frightened little boy," Mullins says.

"His eyes were red. He'd obviously been crying and he was complaining. He said, 'I've been getting a lot of therapy from the guys in here. They've been giving me a hard time.'

"He was upset that they banned his mother from visiting him. I said to him, 'What is the worst part of being in the Super Max,' and he said it was the segregation, being isolated from everybody."

By New Year, Skaf was on suicide watch after officers found six sleeping pills and a broken mirror in his cell when he attempted to set fire to his quarters.

In March, he was charged with being the author of a threatening letter addressed to Woodham. The letter was found in an internal prison mailbox. Laced with a white powder, the letter stated: "Don't take this as a threat but if all muslims aren't released by January 2003 Australia and citizens will be in danger of bombing."

While he awaited a court appearance over the letter, prison guards found five drawings in Skaf's cell depicting scenes including the pack rape of his former fiancee.

One of the cartoons, published in The Sun-Herald last weekend, showed a naked man queuing before the woman saying to her assailant, "Hurry up, man, there's 50 others waiting". Once among Skaf's strongest supporters, the woman told the paper: "He can rot in hell."

Woodham said the pictures showed Skaf was in the right place. "I believe the drawings depict the way he thinks," he said. "It tells you the way he thinks about women. He's learnt nothing since his trial and conviction. He hasn't shown any remorse at all." Neither has he sought psychiatric help.

The show rolled on as it was revealed on Tuesday that a man claiming to be from W2K called Goulburn courthouse and threatened to shoot staff if Skaf were not released.

The threat prompted the Attorney-General, Bob Debus, to announce that Skaf would not appear as scheduled at Goulburn Court on September 12 for a hearing into the threatening letter charge.

Wherever that hearing is held, the presiding magistrate will have some discretion on whether reporters will be allowed to attend. If nothing else, you can bet the decision will be that they can.